In the duplex upstairs, someone shouted, “Go away!”
Chaquille and the laptop were gone, and the sofa was empty now.Jem tucked the vape into his pocket.When he got to the door, people were speaking on the other side.
“—not home,” a man was saying.“I told you, Rory is better.”
“Rory is a little bitch,” a woman answered.Then the door quivered—
Thump.
—and she shouted, “Chaquille, open up!”
Jem opened the door.
It was day, and the light was so bright that at first Jem had to squint while his eyes adjusted.She couldn’t have been more than twenty, her hair the same purple as the shadows in the duplex, and she had her nose pierced; the stud was shaped like a little crystal hand.The man had to have been at least twice her age, and he kept pulling up his jeans like they were going to slide off him.
“Chaquille’s not here,” Jem said.Which might have even been true.
And then he shut the door.
“Hey, wait—” the girl tried.
But the door was already shut.
The duplex was too dark now, so Jem leaned against the wall while his eyes adjusted.The buzz of the neon lights felt like it was inside his bones now: in his jaw, in his teeth, in his skull.His first thought was, I’m still high.And then, What time is it?
His phone was off, so he turned it on again.It buzzed as voicemails started coming in.Voicemails from Tean.He’d been supposed to—
Something with Tean.
It was outside the fog, out there with the smell of all that red meat piled high on the bed, and he wanted to keep it that way.The clock said it was a few minutes after one.Not one in the morning.One in the afternoon.Oh fuck.
Jem found the bathroom, peed, and washed up.Thought about it.Tried to think about it.And hit the vape again.
Another door along the hallway was closed; he decided not to check it.When he let himself out of the duplex, the couple was gone, and the day seemed even brighter than it had been a few minutes ago.Where sun glared off clumps of snow, it left spots in Jem’s vision.
It was one of those ultraclear Utah days when the air seemed like glass and he felt like he could see forever, every detail on every house in the valley.He drove home, making sure to signal, watching the speedometer.Everybody else was moving slowly too.The whole world had slowed down.He’d read a story once, in one of the practice books Tean got him.It was about Sleeping Beauty.The whole world had stayed exactly the way it was except the people.Everybody had gone to sleep.Everybody had slowed down, slowed down, slowed down until they fell asleep wherever they were—making a pie, or working in the field, or spinning wool into yarn.
He was parked in their driveway.
He sat back.Wiped his mouth.Turned off the car.He cracked the window to jet out a stream of vapor, and the cold was like fingers on his jaw.
A sound.
He snapped around in the seat.
Nothing.Bright asphalt.Dead grass.
The car was getting smaller.
Movement.
He twisted, saw long, empty lawns, a mailbox shaped like a bird’s head.
He was sweating, and his hands were starting to shake.
How long have I been here?
Jem didn’t trust himself to pull into the garage.On the short walk to the front door, the wind picked up, and the way it moved over his skin made him feel like he was a drum, and he was hollow inside.
